Mariners notebook: January update plus the latest on Edgar Martinez’s Hall of Fame push

It has been rather quiet in Marinersland, but at last check there is a baseball season approaching. Pitchers and catchers will report to Peoria in just over a month, so fear not, baseball is on the horizon.

In the meantime, there are a number of items on the January schedule that may be of interest.

On the air, the Hot Stove Show starts next Tuesday from 7 to 9 p.m. on 710 ESPN Seattle.

On the ground, the annual Mariners Caravan kicks off with the first stop Monday in Yakima. The Caravan will make two dozen stops in the next three weeks visiting hospitals, meeting Boys & Girls Club members, and holding autograph and picture sessions throughout the Pacific Northwest. Mariners broadcasters, the Moose and players including Dan Altavilla, Ben Gamel, Shawn O’Malley, Cody Martin, James Paxton and Daniel Vogelbach are all scheduled to appear at various stops. A schedule of events with who will be appearing in each city can be found at Mariners.com.

The Caravan leads up to what will be a busy final week of January with a pre-spring training press conference (exact date has yet to be announced), the Hutch Award Luncheon on Jan. 27 and Mariners Fanfest on Jan. 28-29. Shortly after that we will have truck day and, before you know it, we will be coming to you from Peoria.

Only 40 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Notes

• Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto takes a look at catching depth in his post this week and drops an interesting nugget about Jesus Sucre’s contract. Sucre is out of options and would need to clear waivers before the Mariners could send him to the minors this season. At first glance I would think the chances of Sucre clearing waivers to be slim, but Curto notes that his contract is a little different. It is a split major/minor league deal that, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, will pay Sucre $300,000 if he is in the minors. That is not much by big league standards, but in the minors it is significant and perhaps enough to keep an interested team at bay. If a team is desperate, however, I would say all bets are off.

• If you are on Twitter, you may have seen Andy McKay’s tweet Thursday. The Jackson Generals have picked up their hardware.

Very happy for our guys to get their rings for their efforts last season. #peopleandprocess pic.twitter.com/xqzKsNLfGg

— Andy McKay (@AndyMcKayHG) January 5, 2017

• The Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2017 will be announced Jan. 18 at 3 p.m. on the MLB Network. According to Ryan Thibodaux’s ballot tracker, Edgar Martinez is at +29, on 69.2 percent of the ballots with 35.9 percent reported. While it seems highly unlikely he will make the jump the necessary 75 percent to be inducted this time around, I think we can feel pretty good about it happening in the next two years. The Mariners have done an excellent job in promoting Edgar’s case and I think the effort by a number of national writers to educate voters beyond the traditional “counting stats” has had an impact, as well. Craig Calcaterra of NBCSports.com took a swing today that reflects this new voting climate. This is no longer just a Seattle thing and it is great to see the support.